- An Extension of Oneself

With [Death Blade]'s passive setting initial mastery of weapons at Mastered, he could choose any weapon he wanted and still trump over any normal human.

With the system not showing a progress bar on his mastery levels, he could not confirm it but he believed that mastery level does not stop at Mastered

As he had read a lot of Wuxia novels about sword masters in his previous life, he realized that the way he wielded swords and his understanding of them was still superficial. This showed him that there is still a lot of room for improvement.

"Is it possible to reach the level of Ji Ning in this world?" [1]

Unfortunately, he had the gut feeling that the Dao of the Sword was not the path he should be taking. On the surface, it would seem to be a better choice to pursue the art of the sword since so many stories were revolving around it as a weapon. Among all the weapons he knew, his knowledge of the sword's principles was unparalleled.

Despite having knowledge of sword arts from the novels he read, knowing and applying them were entirely separate things.

The only reason he was able to develop the [Black Flame Armor] was that he learned and modified the [Blade Aura] technique. Knowing the principles of Haki and Nen did help a lot but they were not enough to allow him to create a technique from scratch.

It was the same for martial arts which he read from novels and manga, he needed to experience what those characters in those works experienced before he could reach those levels. Unlike the skills that he learned in this world through the black flames and the ones he learned through the [Blood Reincarnation], he had to devote a lot of time and effort to practice the ones in his memory after deriving the flow of energy when using such arts. It was not enough to copy their movements, the usage of stamina, and the circulation of Qi or mana was important. Add all that to the fact that the stories he read were fiction and most techniques were constructs of imagination. Their explanations may not be accurate or even touching on reality at all.

This made recreating the Rasengan or the Kamehameha or the Bankai almost an impossible task. Although he could create similar abilities that would take their forms, their effects and principles would be too different that they can't be called the same techniques.

For example, he could create a swirling orb like the Rasengan and detonate it at the end to create an explosion similar to what is seen in Naruto... However, it would be more efficient to use mana instead of Qi or Chakra simply due to the ease in pulling it off. While Qi and mana are both formless, he discovered early on that Qi has better efficacy in enhancing the body than being used in energy attacks, while mana is the opposite. The same principle applies to Goku's Kamehameha in Dragon Ball Z. While it is better to enhance the body and achieve a Super Saiyanesque form by using Qi, it would be better to use mana to perform the energy-based attacks.

To put it simply, Qi is life energy and affects living organisms more easily, while mana is environmental energy and affects the environment more easily. There would be less energy loss when using mana for attacks over a distance while there would be more energy loss when mana is being used to enhance the body as it becomes exposed to the environment.

He used the same principle when creating the [Black Flame Armor].

The outermost layer of the armor is made up of solidified mana to make it interact with the immediate environment causing less rejection to his movements and more restriction to when he receives attacks, whether they be completely physical attacks like Drago's or magical attacks like Arissef's. It also allows his attacks to directly affect the opponent with the unique properties of his black flames as the more difficult the mana can be absorbed by the body, the less resistant the body is to that particular type of mana.

In his case, the black flames seemed to be foreign, making it so that most, if not all fighters would not have developed the resistance to such mana. It also helped a lot in decreasing the efficacy of Arissef's spells as part of the mana in them was being rejected by the black flames. This allowed him to barely endure the deadly spell, [Lightning Exorcism] back when Arissef used it on him.

In comparison, when he used it on the gigantic demon in the Hell mode dungeon challenge, the spell obliterated it, despite the drastic increase of the demon's attributes from the original. The only reason he did not use it in Abyss mode was because of the absence of heroes restraining the demon, not allowing him the chance to prepare such a strong spell.

He deduced that Arissef developed the spell in the belief that there were stronger demons out there. This made him contemplate whether his master would have been able to survive it or not.

The innermost layer of the armor is made up of dense fluid of Qi, which constantly enhances the body's defense, resistance, and mobility. These enhancements surpassed any enhancement spell in Arissef's arsenal, proving that Qi largely surpasses mana when it comes to body enhancement.

In principle, it was like Naruto's Chakra Cloak or Goku's Ki Aura, both depicting a supercharged state where their cells are brimming with energy and are ready to perform high-powered attacks without needing to charge up. However, as seen in their portrayals of using life energy, the amount of leakage and waste was immense.

Thus, Zex came up with using mana as his second skin while Qi became the film in between the skins, causing minimal waste with a more fine-tuned effect. However, the downside is the high consumption of concentration as he needed to maintain both the form and the state of each energy type. He still had no idea how to solve this flaw.

Bleach's Bankai was simply a release of their spirit weapon's true form. While it would be currently impossible for him to use or manifest spirit weapons and energy since he did not have any spirit techniques except for [Soul Swap], he was already able to perform [True Name Liberation] before which was pretty similar in principle.

However, he is currently not able to perform a release technique or create one on his own, which disappointed him greatly. He needed to study the body reconstruction blueprints that his master sent him soon as he might find a way to temporarily solve the [Unstable Mana] issue and get ready to purify his blood by facing the dragon, Maguru. By then, he might be able to use [Draconian Manifestation] at will.

Getting back to the issue of deciding which weapon art he would be pursuing, after thinking about it deeply, he compiled a list of the weapons he thought were best for him to pursue high levels of mastery.

The list included the sword, the scythe, the bow and arrow, the moon glaives, and... the brick.

Despite the sword being overused and highly popular because of its versatility and the gaping difference of development in its martial arts, something inside Zex was hinting to him against it.

He just included the brick there for his amusement. In his previous life, there were a lot of practitioners of the Dao of the brick in the novels he read. Unfortunately, it would seem that he was not chosen by the brick as he did not feel its call in this life.

The three following weapons, however, have been intensely iconic in his previous life and strangely resonated with him the most.

The first time he was introduced to the scythe being used as a weapon was with .hack//G.U., most notably in the hands of Haseo, the Terror of Death, himself. Then there was the Dark Souls series that showed him other ways of combat using the scythe. However, the most prominent use for him was in Darksiders 2 where the horseman, Death, wielded a scythe that could be split into two-hand scythes. Then there was the RWBY series where Ruby's scythe... is also a gun. [2]

However, when he researched if the scythe was a practical weapon for combat or not, he found that it had so many flaws that it would be hard to use it in every situation. Even in those references above, the scythe was an extremely situational weapon.

Being a Sagittarius in his previous life, he was fascinated with archery. He found it truly amazing how innovatively Legolas from the Lord of the Rings used the bow and arrow in war. Then there was the T.V. series, Arrow, which introduced the strengths and weaknesses of using it in all kinds of situations.

Unfortunately, the weakness of having limited arrows and being vulnerable in close combat was off-putting. Legolas resorted to using daggers in melee combat while Green Arrow simply used unarmed combat at close range.

The moon-glaives, on the other hand, were iconic weapons for Illidan Stormrage, his favorite character when he played Warcraft III. Years later, Terrorblade, The Soul Keeper was the first hero he played in DotA, with him and Magina, the Anti-mage, both using Moon-glaives. These were also his go-to weapons when he played World of Warcraft back in the day.

Directly opposite to the bow and arrow, the weakness of the moon-glaives was their range. The combat style of moon-glaives also involves circular dance-like motion which limits a lot of attack and defense options.

These factors actually reinforce the idea that swords are superior to other weapons because of the various modes of attacks that could be performed with them like stabbing, thrusting, slashing, slicing, a broad attack, a hilt attack, disarming, throwing, etc.

He recalled a saying before that weapons are an extension of the body. It was the same for this world as he heard Drago's mentors speak of it as well.

However, before he could decide on which weapon he wanted to use, he heard a familiar voice.

"So you really took over his body, huh?"

[1] Ji Ning is the main character of the Chinese Xianxia novel, Desolate Era. Throughout the novel, he developed the Dao of the sword into its literal apex, the Omega Sword Dao.

[2] This is a reference to a running joke in the series where most of the weapons used by hunters have a melee form and, you guessed it, a gun form. One of Ruby's famous lines was when she was explaining her weapon to another character, she said: "... It's also a gun".